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UPDATE ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF A HYPERTEXT PROGRAM AS A TEXT AND
REFERENCE SOURCE
I would like to create
a Modernist Fiction Web on the model of my Film/Culture Web and
MultiCultural U.S. Fiction Web for my new Modernist Fiction Course,
English 343b.
A.
Previous technology projects (updated).
I. Hypertext program for English 256, Multicultural U. S. Fiction
Since 1950. In this course we read fiction by American Indian,
African American, Chicano/a, and Asian American writers, as well
as Ronald Takaki's A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural
America. While I will continue to add materials, especially new
websites and historical materials, it is ready to use.
Abstract: The Multicultural U. S. Fiction Web explains and illustrates
the basic concepts of culture in general, U. S. Fiction since
World War II in particular, and reading narrative. It focuses
on U. S. fiction since the1960's--when American Indian, African
American, Latina/o, Asian, and women writers struggled to find
ways to tell their important stories in voices that had been silenced
by the dominant culture. It links definitions, cultural concepts
and information, history and historical documents, narrative theory,
ways to read narrative, narrative conventions of minority cultures,
and websites. Supplementing the reading of novels and history,
it is designed to be read in the logical order of the course and,
making full use of its hypertextual structure, to be surfed according
to individual student interest.
Pedagogical
goals and strategies:
This web will supplement the fiction and history in my course.
It is designed to accomplish two goals:
1) to help students read narrative ( since this is an introductory
course in literature) and narratives of people denied their own
voices by the dominant culture (since this is an introduction
to minority literature)
2) to help students understand theories of culture and the varieties
of multiculturalism; multiculturalism is a form of hypridity,
a concept now at the forefront of cultural theory that governs
the course. The web is also designed not just to make information
easily available through our network, but to take full advantage
of a hypertext structure--which encourages associative as well
as logical thinking. It is designed to be read in a logical order:
students will have regular assignments following the reading schedule
of our books. And it is designed to take full advantage of its
associative hypertextual structure, or to be read by following
links as individual students wish. Description of project: The
best description of my project, which focuses on multiculturalism,
is provided on the homepage: http://acunix.wheatonma.edu/rpearce/MultiC_Web/MultiCHome.html
Evaluation
and dissemination:
The project is being, and will continue to be, evaluated in the
following order:
1. I sent it to a web designer ( the language departments' Mellon
Fellow Jenni Lund), an alumnae graduate student at Tufts (Danielle
Mule), and a recent colleague who taught the course last year
(Michael Manson). I have followed Jenni's and Danielle's suggestions.
Michael Manson only had time for a brief look but will continue
reviewing it.
Comments:
JENNI LUND:
I love your page! I can't wait to curl up with my mouse some evening
and really enjoy it. Maybe many evenings....
I like the grid and the suggestion to return to the local home
page while navigating. I didn't get lost, although the branching
is - -I think -- 3 or 4 levels deep. The only small suggestions
I would make, for your consideration, is to have the "terminal
nodes" and the major pages be just slightly different....
maybe slightly less bright background for the end-nodes of the
tree, or maybe slightly smaller title box... something to cue
the reader that they should go back to the mainstream when they
are done.
Of course, on the other hand, I can appreciate the consistency
between all your pages, because that makes the pages all candidates
to point to, without further explanation or ado. So filter my
ideas through your major vision. Also, had you considered adding
pictures? To narrow the column for easyreading, as much as to
add "eye candy. Thanks for letting me know it was out there.
I'm going to enjoy it!
[I narrowed the column and made the pages less bright.]
DANIELLE MULE: This looks great. The only thing that comes to
mind is that some additional explication of double consciousness
might prove useful. The site is easy to browse through and certainly
seems to hit on the important basic areas and problems of cultural,
historical, and narrative "definitions"--you provide
just enough information to inform and fuel students' understanding,
and it's up to them to figure out how they fit into the class
and the bigger picture as subjects as well as readers--wow! Seems
like you're setting up a pretty sophisticated class here.
[I've added to the file on double consciousness.].
MICHAEL MANSON liked the project and made links from his electronic
syllabus.
2. Then I sent it to colleagues I meet regularly at professional
meetings, who are established scholars and teachers of U. S. Fiction,
cultural studies, and narrative, who all expressed admiration
and appreciation.
3. And finally, I sent it to Paul Lauter (Trinity College), who
led the major revisionary movement in American Literature that
led to The Heath Anthology of American Literature. He has made
links from his electronic syllabus to my Web for his survey course
and has put me in touch with other people using the internet,
as well as people at the Heath site (now at Houghton Mifflin)
4. I ask students in English 256b for their comments and evaluation
during and at the end of the semester. About 1/4th of the class
made good use of it and expressed a great deal of appreciation;
most had little to say. Next year, besides making assignments
and asking them to use the material in their papers, I will 1)
spend more class time on it, 2) give brief exams on the material.
5. At last April's Narrative Conference (Northwestern University)
I talked about my Multicultural US Fiction Web at a panel which
I chaired and on which I read a paper on cultural hybridity--a
concept central to my Web.
2.
Other technology projects, for which I no longer have Reports:
Film/Culture Web, which I have made into a CD and was well received
by students in my film course last year. I will be revising it
for next fall's, partly on the basis of what I've learned about
writing for the computer screen.
English 101: Writing about Computer Culture, which I am happy
not to give again. The were a great many problems in teaching
this course, from the technical problems during the first year,
when the campus was newly networked; to CommonSpace, which no
one at Wheaton knew, which took me many hours to work with, and
which the students did not like; to students ranging from extremely
knowledgeable about computers and applications (who were not interested
in the historical and cultural approach), to students who had
never used a computer, to students who were very poor writers
and readers, to students who did not want to be in the course.
I still think the subject matter is important, and I learned a
great deal, especially about writing for the computer screen.
See http://acunix.wheatonma.edu/rpearce/WritingCompScr/index.html
B.
Pedagogical Goals:
Next spring I will offer a new course in Modernist Fiction: an
Overview, which will alternate with my regular course, Modernist
Fiction: James Joyce and Virginia Woolf.
Students will read individual novels, and they need a text that
supplements the approach I will be developing in class.
C.
Pedagogical Strategy:
I would like to create a Modernist Fiction Web on the model of
my Film/Culture Web and MultiCultural U.S. Fiction Web. But I
will include study questions. This will be about 100 interlinked
files divided into the following categories:
Reading Modernist Fiction: (suspending traditional expectations
[especially the traditional story line], stream of consciousness,
reading for patterns, classical allusions, point of view, free
indirect discourse, etc.)
Cultural Studies: (industrialization, the modern city, mass culture,
modern advertising, colonialism, the effect of slavery, Darwin
and Eugenics, the Women's Movement, Marx, Freud, Primitivism,
The Harlem Renaissance, etc.)
Theory: (New Criticism, New Historicism, Poststructuralism, Postcolonialism,
Psychoanalytic Criticism)
The Authors: Joseph Conrad, E.M. Forster, D.H. Lawrence, James
Joyce, and Virginia Woolf from Britain and, from the U.S. William
Faulkner, writers from the Harlem Renaissance and Toni Morrison's
Jazz, a contemporary view of the period.
D.
Needs:
Time: about 100 hours. I know how to make the web using Microsoft
FrontPage, which is not supported.
E,
F. Assessment and Dissemination Plans:
I will ask colleagues, especially those teaching undergraduates,
to assess my web. Some of them will be giving me advice on the
individual files. I will also continually ask students for feedback
and add a section on the web for the course evaluation. A valuable
specific source of help will be Michael Groden, a major Joyce
scholar, who, having received good funding and training at NYU
has been able to gather a designer and technician to create a
very ambitious CD Rom on Joyce's Ulysses. I will be among the
number of Joyce scholars assisting him. And I will discuss the
Modernist Fiction Web at next year's Narrative and Joyce Conferences.
F. The Modernist Fiction Web will be on the internet.
Last updated
on 1/26/99; 3:57:57 PM
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